


What shouldn't be

by inquisitor_acorn (acornchild)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief, Internal Monologue, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Solas wins, Tragic Romance, the Veil is gone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29945019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acornchild/pseuds/inquisitor_acorn
Summary: Solas goes for a walk, but finds a remnant of his past.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	What shouldn't be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Noire12](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noire12/gifts).



> Part of a Beyond the Veil Angst Challenge, written for the lovely Noire12, Noire-Pandora on Tumblr!
> 
> Prompt this year was "roses", and "make tears happen". Hope I did well :))

They were not meant to have survived.

It had taken Solas far more effort than he expected to reacquaint himself with a world lost for a thousand years. At first, he was certain it would be easy – why wouldn’t it be? - to abandon that nightmare of a parched life, to cast away the dry and brittle in favour of the vitality of magic, flowing ready at your fingertips. It should have been like waking up.

All those years ago, in his other life as _just_ Solas, his days were plagued with regret and memories of the world he had torn apart. He had wished then, many times, that with a snap of his fingers he could trade one world for the other.

But then he felt the whole world change, he changed, _she_ changed him, made him question all the wisdom he once took for granted with his immortality.

Then Solas had won. Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf, defeated the Inquisition, _the Inquisitor_ , and everyone who had once called him a friend. He was a warning come to life. Now, a new Arlathan of his own making brimmed and bristled with magic, blissfully unaware of what its creation had cost.

The second time Solas tore the world apart, he woke up to more grief, not less. Where he thought he might comfort, he is left wanting, his days plagued by loss twice over, never to escape. Living in this new world was just like waking up, only if waking up ever required one to rip out part of themselves and leave it within the dream.

Solas had been down this particular road many times before. It was not some overgrown forest path, forgotten by time and spirits. It was what he knew to be the path of the old Imperial Highway, in a time no one alive remembers.

It was pure chance that he stopped here, in this spot, and noticed the rose bush growing by the side of the road.

After he woke from his slumber, one whole life ago, the strange flora was one of the first things he had noticed. When Solas had ripped magic and reality apart, the forests, trees, flowers, even the grass had morphed into something else. It had shrivelled and paled, became unrecognizable and to him, devoid of life. Now, with the Veil gone, everything returned to normal, every pore and every petal singing with energy.

But Arlathan had never seen roses.

Yet here they were, a small pocket of an alternate reality, fiery red and in full bloom, out by the side of the road.

Solas could feel the thrum of magic in the air, and if he came closer to the wild growth, he could hear it faintly, flowing through the veins of each leaf. But the roses were completely silent, effectively lifeless in the sea of energy around it. And yet, despite their lifelessness, the leaves swayed with the wind, the light reflected their shine, shadows covered the twists of petals. Solas might have thought them a figment of his imagination, perhaps something he had conjured in his grief – but then he bent down, tracing his fingers over the silky petals, over the sharp thorns. They were _real_ , as real as a love lost. Mere chance, a fluke had kept them alive, sheltered from being restored to their natural state. He wondered whether their existence was more a sign of victory, or of defeat.

His pride was his foolishness, and the world, even _his_ world, laughed at him for it.

Solas felt sorrow bloom in his chest as he cupped one of the roses with one hand. He had no right to think of her, of tight red curls like the rings of a rose, of her cheeks that had felt as soft as silk when he had traced them with his thumb, of her sharp gaze and prickly temper that had torn his heart to pieces before mending it back together again.

The shadow of the thought of her name crept into his mind, and still, after so many years, he thought it might break him. Like many times before, Solas tried to morph his pain into anger. He wanted to crush the rose in his hands, to curse every single soul who had laid their eyes on these flowers, these remnants of a dream, this _evidence_.

Solas took a deep breath, fighting against the weight of his guilt, trying to commit this shade of red to memory. If his world is to survive, what came before has to go. The roses had to go.

What should he do? He could leave them perhaps, walk by every day, smell their sweet perfume and watch them peacefully wilt away.

He closed his eyes. A selfish thought.

He opened them with a flash of blue light, and in the span of seconds, the rose bush withered, burst into flames, then turned to glimmering dust, swept away by the wind.

Another weight to the wealth of his regrets. 


End file.
